Reseller hosting: what can you do with it and how do you expand?

With reseller hosting, you manage your own customers' websites in a single package. You give each customer or each domain its own account in DirectAdmin. In this article, you'll read which reseller packages are available, how to create accounts and how to expand your package. If your existing package has just been converted to a reseller package, you'll find out at the bottom how to move a domain to its own account.

The reseller packages

• WEBRESEL: 1 CPU core and 1 GB RAM per account, including 7.5 GB storage, 50 users and 100 domains.
• Power Reseller: 4 CPU cores and 4 GB RAM per account, including 7.5 GB storage, 5 users and 10 domains, with SSH and the Terminal.

Both come with a white-label DirectAdmin control panel: you set your own logo, colours and menu, so your customers log in to your environment. You can see the current prices and how far you can expand on the Reseller hosting page.

User level and reseller level

When you log in to DirectAdmin, you'll see two levels:

• User level: your own hosting account, with your own domains, website and email.
• Reseller level (shown as Reseller Level in DirectAdmin): this is where you create hosting packages and accounts for your customers.

The big advantage of a separate account per customer or domain: each account has its own computing power, memory and processes. If one site is busy or hacked, the other accounts won't notice a thing. If all domains are in your own user account, they share everything and one domain can slow down the rest.

Creating an account for your customer

1. In DirectAdmin, go to the reseller level.
2. First create your own hosting package with the limits you want to give your customer, such as storage, domains, mailboxes and databases. You do this under Manage User Packages with Add Package.
3. Then create a new account with Add New User. Choose the domain and the package, and give your customer the login details. You can see all your accounts under List Users.

Your customer logs in to DirectAdmin with that account and only sees their own domains. If you order a domain from WebOké for your reseller package, you choose in the order which user it goes under, or you have a new user created.

Want to create accounts automatically from your own system? You can do that with the DirectAdmin API. Read Using the DirectAdmin API: managing your package with scripts.

You can also manage your customer accounts and hosting packages in My WebOké: open My Control Panel and choose the My customers tab.

Placing a domain under a user

Always place a customer's domain under its own user in your reseller package. That's why My WebOké always asks which user a domain goes under.

• Ordering a new domain or a transfer: choose your reseller package in the order. Under Under which user?, choose an existing user or Create new user. We create a new user at checkout; you can then adjust its properties yourself at reseller level.
• A domain that's already in your account: go to My Domains › Move, choose the domain and your reseller package as the destination, and then choose the user or a new user.
• A domain that stays registered elsewhere: log in to DirectAdmin as the user and add the domain under Domain Setup. Then change the nameservers at your registrar to those of WebOké.

If the user is full, the number of domains for that user is increased by one when you order. If the reseller package itself is full of users, first increase the number of users (see below).

Moving your customers' websites to your reseller package

The free migration service doesn't apply to reseller packages: you move the sites yourself. Here's how to go about it:

1. From another DirectAdmin provider: create the users with us using the same usernames as at your current provider. Make a full backup per user there and restore it with us. Website, databases and email then move over in one go.
2. From cPanel: DirectAdmin has an import function for cPanel accounts at reseller level. You'll need SSH access to the cPanel server for this. See the DirectAdmin documentation.
3. WordPress sites: first create the user and the domain, then import the site with Installatron.
4. Email only: use Email migration to transfer mailboxes from your old provider.
5. Domain names: transfer them to WebOké and choose the correct user straight away in the order. See How do I transfer my domain to WebOké?.

Would you rather leave the migration to someone else? Ask via a ticket what's possible.

Expanding your package

You adjust storage, users and domains yourself in My WebOké:

1. Go to My Products and click Manage next to your reseller package.
2. Under Configurable Options, choose the new amount of storage, users or domains. The cost is shown next to each choice.
3. Click Save Options, check the amount and pay.

You only pay the difference for the rest of your current period. After that, the expansion is included in your renewal price. Extra storage takes effect immediately after payment. If your reseller package is full of users, you can only create a new user once you've increased the number. Also read How do I change or upgrade my hosting package? and Ordering more storage/disk space.

Your package has been converted to a reseller package

Your existing domains are still at user level, in your own account. Here's how to move a domain to its own account:

1. Make a backup of the domain at user level. If you want to set everything up again from scratch, this isn't necessary.
2. Delete the domain at user level.
3. Create a new account for that domain at reseller level.
4. Log in with that account and restore the backup, or set up the website and email again.

What isn't included in a reseller package?

• SSH, the Terminal and Redis are only included in Power Reseller, not in WEBRESEL. See SSH access and the Terminal in DirectAdmin: which packages and how to log in.
• The MCP server for AI and the AI features of the AI WordPress packages are not included in reseller packages.
• Transferring: you can't transfer a reseller package, or a user from it, to another WebOké customer yourself. If a customer wants their own package in their own WebOké account, have them create an account and send us a ticket with the domain name and the email address of that account. We'll then look at what's possible.
• Support for your customers: we help you as a reseller, not your customers directly.

Cancelling a reseller package

If you cancel your reseller package, all users you created for your customers will also be deleted on the end date, along with their websites, email and files. So move your customers' sites first, or put them in separate packages. You can read how cancelling works in Cancelling products and domains, withdrawing a cancellation and what happens next.

More about the packages and DirectAdmin: Which packages have DirectAdmin, and what do you manage in My WebOké? and Domains per package and moving a domain in the guides.